Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Hi,
as you propably know (see website www.epod-bot.net.tc) I stopped working on E[POD]bot.

When I checked the Forum today to see if anybody reacts to the news the page did not load properly at first and I could only see the bar at the top, where you see the different softwares I noticed that EPB isn't in the quickbar any longer.

So I decided to take care of E[POD]bot, so that it is not a dead bot. I think I will get E[POD]bot IIIa up the next days. I will not continue coding the bot myself because I am not able to do that. But I wish somebody could do it. There are 2 possibilities:

1. E[POD]bot is continued with his original name. Someone who will try to work on it gets the source code from me and I will stay in the project as a kind of advisor. I will also still maintain the website and perhaps code some parts of the bots, but the main programming is in the hands of the new programmer. The advantage of this would be the philosophy of Enhanced POD-Bot will be the same and not change to Advanced E[POD]bot *g*

2. E[POD]bot will be continued with a new name, as a kind of following bot. The one who programs it sets up an own website for it, gives credits to me somewhere (e.g. like the message about pod-bot appearing on the screen in E[POD]bot). Of course I will answer question this programmer has.

There is no difference concerning the progress the bot may make.

There is no use in making it open-source I think. It's not very clean code, not something which can be a template for dozens of people to program bots. And I think it gets confusing because there are already so many PB2.6 modifications around and if they get more nobody can overlook this. In this forum, however, I can post code extracts if somebody wants to use e.g. a specific feature in his bot. The good thing is, I can "clean up" the parts of code I post. If E[POD]bot is continued by a new programmer (possibility 1) this has to be talked over with him of course. It can get open source if he wants that.

It would be very cool to have MarD as waypointer, even if the bot is not continued. I already mailed him but I now try the forums, because I feel somehow ashamed because I "disappeared" for months and I don't want to disappoint everybody.
There can be more waypoint packs and other additions (language files). The bot won't be dead as long as people use it and it seems as if there is still big interest. The version IIIa is much more stable and some annoying bugs are fixed.

You cannot download it now, but it won't take very long. Here is already the changelog. It's now version IIIa because this changelog should have been at least two times that big, but I failed to implement some of the features and did not have time for the other ones, because of school and some other things I had to do in real life.

* FIXED: Bots having problems to navigate the map and staying
at one place for a long time
* FIXED: Bots tending to move towards the target zone but then
turn around and go somewhere else.
* ADDED: EPBcfg.exe, a tool where ýou can do all the settings
for the bot and select your language files for Chat and
Bot-Menu/Console.
* ADDED: multi-language support. Comes with chat-files for
English and German and with Menu/Console-Files for English,
German and French. Language files are plain text files which
can be translated by users. (see directories titles and chat)
* Changed the layout of the podbotmenu a little bit.


I hope somebody will react on this post.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Geez, now HOW are we supposed to react ???


OT: glad to learn that you're not dead.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Yeah, I'm also glad you diddn't vanish off the face of the earth. Lol, I just realized this, but when I read your post, I was 4 inches away from the monitor, with a shocked look on my face... a fellow student asked me if I'm "ok..." I'm sleepy, n' trying to read important news. what's what I am... :P

Did you send an e-mail to my hotmail account? I havn't gotten anything there form you lately...

I'd wanna continue E[POD]bot... but I still need to learn some C++... n' trying to compile HPBbot seems to be hard... lol, but yeah, I probably just need to update my copy of bloodshed's DEV C++.. :P

I got some manual on "how to learn C++ in 21 days." I'm hoping that it does teach me good C++... but it wants me to learn using visual sudio... n' I'm too cheap for that. :D

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Hi MarD, do you have experience in other programming language. I do not mean web programming like PHP, but like Delphi, Pascal, Basic or something like that?

If yes you can learn C++ by doing and figuring out how things work...

See ya!

LightNinja

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Well, I know Pearl programming language cause that's apparently the programming language of BW's Mission Builder for the GTA series.

It looks like this:
That part of my bikerbodyguard code makes the biker bodyguard figure out if it should follow the player who's facing (vaguely) West, and what offset he should use.

[EDIT]
Lol, oops, forgot to mention my next big modding project for GTA VC.. it's called: Gotham City. YEP! BATMAN! and not just that... but OLD SKOOL BATMAN! like, the 1960's batman. We've already acomplished quite a bit. Monty (Rober Yeomans) is our lead Texturer and mapper, and me (ThE_MarD) is the coder. We've also gotten help from an italian batfan who converted our batmobile from the game known as Mafia. here's a link to check out some pics n' stuff: http://www.thebatcave.8k.com/gotham_city.htm :)

I dunno PHP, n' the rest of those programming languages ... you mentioned..

I tried figuring out C++ by looking at it... right now to me it looks like a foreign language... I know it makes sence to people who know it, but I'm completely confused by it. I'm sure eventually I'll figure it out. :P

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

I believe I know Perl a bit too (it's a widespread interpreted language especially used in UNIX scripts), but this language you posted doesn't look like it at all ?

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Of course you can try it, but I think you won't do better than me, since you have the ViceCíty project and your "real life" ;)

If you coped with that strange language you will be able to cope with C++... don't be shocked because it's C++, it's not much harder... some things are difficult because there are symbols used instead of words... but that's a thing you can learn while time passes...

Actually the point is: Don't mind your programming in C++... Imagine it's "POD-Bot-Programming-Language" or something like that. If you look at two different C++ programs you could easily think that are two different programming languages. On the first sight. At the second you will see the characteristics such as the { brackets } and the funny && and such things.
Because of that the book "how to learn C++ in 21 days" (there is a german translation of it in our city's library) would not be very helpful. You will of course learn the basics of C++ but the book is about programming some tiny windows software and not a DLL for some ego shooter.

If you do not use VC++ it will be quite hard to compile it, because POD-Bot is written with VC++. But it's not impossible, you should be able to compile it with almost every C++ Compiler (which supports Windows DLL), you just have to know how to do it.


Anybody else who has interest?


I noticed that E[POD]bot IIIa does not show many bugs anymore, but it's just weak. They can use snipers properly, but a friend of mine got stats of 20:3 after 6 rounds. He was alone in a team of bots fighting against a team of bots-only with equal size. The bots are equal enemies for me, because I very seldom play CS now... But after 30 minutes I also can beat them high.

The most important thing is to get it tougher. It sounds easier as it is, because I tried hard to get the bots better but it did not work well. Okay, there are some possibilites to get them better, but this would bring some bugs back or let them act very inhuman like fragging machines.The ultraskill mode with skills up to 200 does not improve the skill of them much... They are a little better, perhaps 20 percent. but not twice as good. :(

Somebody else who wants to keep E[POD]bot alive?


[ The third possibility I figured out today, if nobody will continue E[POD]bot is to give the source code to the developers of yaPB and mmPOD, so they can use it to improve their bots. But that would be a sad end for a glorious bot. ]

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Well, I was told it was pearl cause it was like dollar signs n' stuff... lol, I dunno what programming language I know then. :P

Apparently DEV C++ can do bot ones if you get one if you upgrade... I'll do that come monday when I get highspeed internet again. :D

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

well, i wold like to try, but there are 2 problems:

1) i don't know nothing about c++:( and i, trying to learn it, downloaded visual vasic 2005 express beta, and there are no oportuniti for me to learn it, becouse i have a lot of strange errors(do not find iostream.h(i use the cprogramming.com and the cplusplus.com(the first program, i can't do hello world, i am pathetic) guides)) o_O )i'll try to save money to buy VC 6.0 (i think that there are 3 cd)(and i'll only can buy a copy, sorry, i'ts not my fault)

2)i need a 8 in math, oh my god!, and i have until 19 of november to study, then, i'll can start to learn C++ from morrow to night!

so i'll need a lot of time, so probably anyone can make me a mini guide until i start,so i don't think i'll can't continue E[POD] Bot, i'm not very luky

seeya

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

It's very nice to see that the bot is not lost :)

I would really be happy if anyone could convert the bot to metamod... that would be awesome!

Then new features could always come after that. ;)

As far as i know, it's currently not possible to run two non metamod bot's on steam at the same time.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

E[POD]bot won't run on steam anyway, because it's not compatible. It's a CS-1.5-only bot. I don't have the possibilities (no broadband internet) to do a CS 1.6 bot, but perhaps my successor can make it CS-1.6-compatible.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Well, you could've asked whistler cause he made a little plugin that makes CS 1.5 bots work on CS 1.6... I bet he'd be happy to lend the source on how to do it...

@exilibur: does botmixer 5000 work on steam? if so, you could try that out. ;)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

as far as i know, it doesn't

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

no, please, metamod nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!
(or at least make metamod a option like YaPB)

seeya

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

There's nothing wrong with metamod, infact, it's good for bots, cause then you can load several different bots at once to have a unique gaming experience. :)

BTW, for metamod, it's like, 200Kb at the most. if you don't have that free on your computer... then you've gotta lot of computer cleansing to do. :P and E[POD]bot shouldn't take up like, 200mb, that's like, a total conversion pack, like CS Realisim Update.. n' that download was only 50mb..

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Ok, LN, send me a copy of the Source Code if you ain't too busy PLZ. I picked up a copy of Visual Studio, n' I got rid of that "lean C++ in 21 days" cause it seems outdated, n' people have been giving me bad reviews onnit since it won't help me code bots...

I'mma finish learning C++ and then try to continue the bot... I'm thinking aboot once I get good enough, to try to convert it to Hostile Intent, cause I don't think it has a bot... it's what CS used to be.. a very tactical game. (I won't give a big speech aboot "back in the ol' days of CS" :P

if you wanna check into this mod yourselves, it's at http://www.hostileintent.org/

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Hi Light Ninja
I do not inderstand C++ very much but I study it now.And if you send me the Source Code of E[POD]bot and I complete study on C++ I will continue the bot.I already send you mail to send me the bot Source Code and please send me some instruction to go on.
I very hope that you will send me the code.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Do you mean the PODSteam ? Actually it's not a Metamod plugin but a normal DLL. It just wraps something in the bot dll and "fake" a CS 1.5 in CS 1.6. However there are still some problems which can't be solved in this way, such as buy weapons. Bots will always press the keys like in CS 1.5.
Also I have included the source code in ALL my programs :) (and no code is GPL'ed unless it's a metamod plugin because I don't think they are worthy to GPL, so you are free to make non-free or "closed-source" programs based on them ;))

LN can't make a metamod plugin at all even if in a "mixed" way. That will be illegal if he doesn't release the source code :(

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

:/ Please open-source then!!!

and then metamod

wish i knew c++ or whatever the language was...

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

It's C++, and yeah, np whistler, I'll just see how PM pulled it off for buy keys in PODbot v2.6mm, to see how it should be fixed. ;)

So, non-free eh? as in charge people to use EPB so I can make money? bwuahahaha!!!... jk guys, I wouldn't do that to ya, EPB was meant to always be a free bot. :D

If I wanted money, I'd join a gaming company... which I am. :P

Hmm, seriously? so if I wanna make E[POD]bot a metamod plugin, I'd have to give out the source code? hmm... well, I'll think about it... right now I just wanna lean C++, n' make small improvements, n' then move onto the bigger stuff. ;)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

the "free" in "non-free" is as in "freedom" not price.

"free software" is more or less similar to "open source", then "non-free" means (more or less) "closed-source". See http://www.gnu.org for more about 'free software'. I just prefer this term to "open source".

also the software which you can get for no money (but NO source code is provided) is "freeware", not "free software".

Yes, that's required in the GNU GPL, which is the license for Metamod.

PS, I think I can try to port it to CS 1.6 (and Metamod if you wish). If you don't mind please send me a copy of source code. It's only half an hour's work :)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

I don't think a metamod plugin requires you give the source to it..
on the metamod.org's list of plugins it actually tells you which ones give out source code and which don't..
this probably means that you don't have to give the source code out..

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Well, Whistler, I'm sure I can trust ya, cause you're a good coder, so ok, I'll send you the source code, just tell me an e-mail where I can send it to ya ok?also If it's not too hard for ya, can you make a little side file to show me what you changed so I can learn how you did it? if not then it's ok, I'll read over this code until it makes sence... took me 25+ hrs for GTA modding... but hey, at least I got it... right? :P

BTW, Lol, go sPlOrYgOn with the sig! lol... I also noticed a few days back you added the firefox symbol to your sig as well, cool. But I'm dumb n' ignorant, so I still use IE. ;)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

this is my e-mail:
yapb_cs(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)kr

sorry for being late but I wasn't on the internet these days...

@splorygon: there are actually 2 things which can make MM plugins fall under GNU GPL:
1) the plugin have to link against the metamod source
2) also look at this page at the free software foundation site:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins

however there is anexception: that the author of Metamod can make exception on this. So you can ask Will Day for it.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

The "plugin must be GPL" case is highly debatable (I thought this question was solved already ?) If you "work out" the metamod API yourself - read: in practice, use the metamod source code, strip away all that you don't need and rename stuff here and there so that nobody can prove that you've actually used it :D - you won't be linking against the metamod source code, but just against the HL SDK. And as the GNU people say themselves, a plugin of a GPL program doesn't need to be GPL unless the author of the main module explicitly wants it so.

And knowing Will Day I can bet that he has chosen to develop metamod under the GPL in order to give freedom to the coders to look at the source code, and certainly not to take away from the coders the freedom to disclose theirs or not. But Whistler is a die-hard GPLer, one of those who could turn a license designed for freedom in one of the most restrictive licenses ever. I bet Will Day would have put metamod under the BSD license, if he'd known :D

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Lol, well, Whistler, if I send it to you, can you promise to not release it to the public? cause it's LN's wish that he wants E[POD]bot to be a traditional Bot mod: it's 1 coder, no source code.

Also, I probably won't be the one to continue E[POD]bot, cause I've got too much to do myself, it's going to be someother dude who LN has been talking to a bit, so now I'm thinking of getting it CS v1.6 compatible for that guy, and now he, and I, can see the differences in the code.

[EDIT]
BTW, Whistler, I'm not that CS-AI guy, I won't take all the credit, heck, technically the only credit for E[POD]bot I deserve is for the waypoints, so just throw your name in the readme somewhere and write something like "the dude who made E[POD]bot CS v1.6 compatible." or something like that. ;)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

I just want to help you. I won't release it even if I'm a "die-hard GPL guy" (as PMB said :D) because that is NOT mine

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

have to going OT for yet another time:

"strip away all that you don't need and rename stuff here and there so that nobody can prove that you've actually used it - you won't be linking against the metamod source code, but just against the HL SDK"
...then is it legal if I use a exe resource editor to change all the texts and graphics in a PROPRIETARY software and release it for free ?

"And as the GNU people say themselves, a plugin of a GPL program doesn't need to be GPL unless the author of the main module explicitly wants it so."
Yes, it doesn't need to be GPLed *at all*. You can use BSD License for plugins if you want to. That is to say, you just need to grant all the permissions in the GNU GPL.
And if plugins is only called and does NOT make dynamic link to the main module you can even make it non-free.
Also Will Day DOES "explicitly wanted" it, just take a look at the Metamod faq file.

"...and certainly not to take away from the coders the freedom to disclose theirs or not."
that is to say, "and certainly not to take away from the coders the freedom to take away users' freedom to share and change the programs or not".

"But Whistler is a die-hard GPLer, one of those who could turn a license designed for freedom in one of the most restrictive licenses ever."
GPL IS "the most restrictive license" for non-free software developers; it's only good for users and free software developers who don't want others to use their code in non-free software.
Remember it is NOT designed for non-free software developers' freedom at all. So if you don't think non-free software is bad, just don't use GPL. No one has forced you to use GPL for all of your code; the point of GPL is to make sure all copies of the ORIGINAL software is always free software.

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

darn, he's right again

oh well, fuck this. Can't they just let people decide for themselves :) And moreover, Will's wrong here. :)

btw, about the resource editor, I was joking :) Funny how you take all this legal stuff to the letter, always :) My point was just that it is technically possible to write a metamod plugin without linking against the metamod source code. But if I would be to go this way, I'd certainly go the way I told (which is NOT legal, granted, but nobody's supposed to know, eh ?) :P

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

I learnt taking a course called "Thought Patterns to a Successful Carrer," that we never "have to" do anything, we choose to do what we want. ;)

So you could choose to disobey the GPL licence, or obey it. In the end, it's a small matter of morals and tradition. In the GPL licence case? open source. :P

heh, good to see I can put my learning's into use so soon. :D

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

I've already sent back the code yesterday. Hope the Korean Yahoo has correctly delivered it :)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

nice!

I'm looking forward to try it :)

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Opps! sry for the delay folks! I don't check my stupid outlook express enough! I'm hosting it at my freewebs site right now! :P

http://www.freewebs.com/mard_lltd/

[EDIT]
OOPS! I'm too tired, it's 1:30 am for me, n' I just realised I can't just relay the zip from whistler cause it's the source code. lol, gimmie a few more mins to compile it (I have VS 6 now Whistler, DEV C++ is a thing of the past. ;) )

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

well I think you have uploaded the original EPB file which doesn't support CS 1.6...
I have re-digged into my Yahoo outbox and compiled the dll. I'm posting the dll file here...

note that the code you have sent to me is very buggy and crashes/freezes a lot so this version may be only for testing...

Re: Anybody here to continue E[POD]bot?
 

Heyyo,

Nope, it's the one you sent me, I compiled it, n' copied the files over the copy of vIIIa I have on my computer. But It's always good to have a mirror to get it from. ;)